The Lion, The Snake, and The Fox
by clevergirl36
Summary: Leoben models are the trickiest of sorts. Sometimes they flat-out lie. And sometimes, they tell the truth.


The first time a Leoben model was seized on his ship, Starbuck nearly drowned the bastard hoping he'd be soaked through next resurrection. By the time the president finally airlocked him, he'd planted enough deception to stir trouble for weeks. The next time the shifty-eyed cylon was dragged in front of him by a squad of marines who'd found him cowering in a storage room, he didn't hesitate to feed his ass to the greedy vacuum of space. The sickening grin plastered across the most devious model's face left him shuddering, but nothing more. The third time he received word of Leoben chained to a desk in a detention room, Adama wanted to know how the frak the bastard was getting on his ship.

There's that smirk again, Adama thought. Across from the interrogation table, the upward snarl of the cylon's thin lips taunted the Admiral's stony countenance. That stupid button-up shirt he always wore once again girded his seemingly human chest, and his face-the human face that fooled no one-told the bloody story of his beatings. Even so, the smirk endured.

"I'm going to ask you again" Adama's baritone steely and unfaltering. "How did you board Galactica, and how many cylons are hidden among the fleet." Leoben scanned his opponents face and noticed the furious blue eyes and strained jawline. He set the bait.

"You seem troubled these days, Admiral. Last time we met there wasn't a lick of gray in your hair, hmmm look at ya' now." A sneer of a statement, really. The jawline tightened. "The lion can never show his weakness, makes the pride question his lead." He again searched the Admiral's face for a reaction. Nothing. "Well c'mon, there's got to be something eating at you, Lee being obstinate again? He's learned that from Laura you know, she showed him that someone was finally allowed to stand up to you. Not that she isn't used to 'coercing' men of power." The cylon tilted his head and held his ground. After all, the snake must first latch onto its prey before it may throttle it alive. Adama's balled-up fist and white knuckles only added to the fuming storm behind his blue eyes.

The white-knuckled fist connected with Leoben's temple across the table in a sharp CRACK! that had the marine guards leaping to their feet. Albeit a bit breathless, Adama's voice betrayed no emotion, "How did you board…my ship."

Laughter rang from the cylon's thrown-back head; throaty, raucous laughter that would send the ground shaking, Adama imagined. To be honest, Bill was a bit startled at the sudden display. This snake of a machine had more up its sleeve, it seemed. When Leoben's shoulders finally relaxed from heaving and his breath returned to him, he sat with a bemused, if not content shine in his narrowed eyes. "I found it, didn't I? That _thing_ that's been tearing at you…it's her. Why do you keep me around, huh? You should have airlocked me the moment they brought me to your doorstep, yet here we are chatting. You _like_ hearing my twisted words, you think I'll tell you something profound mixed in with all this bullshit." A wicked grin passed his lips as he spoke with a careful softness "And the honorable lion fell for the red fox…The Admiral loves the President.

Adama heard those exact words rattle around his head for months, but to have them vocalized- this was true agony. Before the Admiral could strike him again, Leoben used his cylon projection abilities to fade the room around them. Adama staggered back from his chair. "What…what the hell?" he managed as he stared wide-eyed at the walls dissolving before him to display a new canvas of scenery. It was then, Bill realized, that he found himself in the place he thought he'd never see again, in the Caprica City market square. The place was brighter than he remembered, like he was looking at a recreation under stage lights. Leoben strode up beside him with his hands dug deep in his pockets. "You passed her here once, you know." He nodded toward a bookshop on the corner of some unnamed road. "You almost went in there, just to browse some books on your day off. She was combing the classics section, hoping to scrounge something good for her students to read and dissect. This was ten years ago." Adama gritted his teeth as he watched the scene unfold, struggling to keep Leoben from sensing his misery amidst the forgotten memory. Bill watched as a darker-haired, slimmer version of himself walked purposefully across the street and pause in front of the shop window. Bill knew what happened next, and the "what if" of the moment stabbed at his heart. Leoben looked on in indifference. The younger Bill let out a deep sigh and paced onward in the distance, not in the mood for books today. Bill felt the sudden urge to rush across the street in frenzy and shake the shoulders of the man he once was, to tell him who and what he's missing. Bill froze as a flash of auburn caught his eye-Laura exited the shop just as younger Bill was out of sight. The breath caught in his throat.

She was wearing a breezy, dusty rose sundress that floated around the elegant frame of her body. The hazy world Leoben created stood in stark contrast to the clear lines of her skin and the flames of her hair that tousled in the wind. Adama hardly noticed the armful of books in her hands. In fact, he hardly noticed anything but the radiance that was her. She was utterly different than the women he knew now, and yet exactly the same. Her bare shoulders moved easily without the burden of presidency, and the lines of her face were softer with youth. She glided, rather than walked, and held her head proud to be walking the streets of the greatest city on the planet. Effortless, was the adjective that kept spinning round his head. A pressing voice yanked him back to the present, "It's a pity you were never to meet her like this. The cautious fox warms up to others slowly; though the red coat draws many admirers to the picky creature. You could have had a giant head start."

Adama turned away sharply and growled at Leoben, "Stop this. I've had enough of your games." Leoben held up a bony hand to halt his demands. "I'm not through yet, Admiral, there's more you need to see. The lion faces his demons, isn't that right, Oh Courageous One?" Before he could protest, Bill found his surrounding slipping from his view again and a new scene emerging around him. It took him longer to realize his location as he scanned the grassy plains stretching in all directions. The terrain was peppered with muddy flats, soaring mountains, and a foggy atmosphere. He spotted the tent city in the distance and wondered to himself, why would he bring me to New Caprica? The half-finished wooden cabin that suddenly caught his eye answered him. His blue stare bore into the tricky cylon, cursing him for this and begging him to continue all the same. Leoben stated simply, "You missed your chance ten years ago, but you lived on in blissful ignorance of her existence. This haunts you every single day, doesn't it?" Before Bill could roar in response, the sound of joyous laughter broke the tense air. It came from near the cabin. Leoben leaned in with a sly grin, "This is how it _would _have happened. If you would have settled."

Adama stared for the second time at what was a distant version of himself, mustachioed and carrying lumber through the thick grass. This version seemed to have a permanent grin hidden beneath facial hair, and wore military tanks under the hot New Caprican sun. The stream nearby, which he somehow guessed to be clear as glass, babbled happily in the morning air. New Caprican Bill turned as he heard the woman's laughter to face its origin. "Something funny?" he teased. A boot-clad work-clothed Laura strode into view from behind him, touting an identical piece of lumber and a messy red ponytail. "You're doing all this for me, when three years ago" she groaned a bit as she heaved the wood into a nearby pile with a clatter, "you threw my ass in a battleship brig." New Caprican Bill rasped out a response with a broadening smile. "Times have a changed, Laura." Laura held his gaze and sauntered toward him. "Indeed they have, Bill. I like change." She drew closer to him still, and soon they were eye to eye with only the carried log to separate them.

As the Admiral looked on his heart cried out. With clenched teeth and saddened eyes, he looked straight at what he wanted most, and couldn't have. He watched New Caprican Bill fling the lumber from to one side and clutch Laura Roslin with tan, muscled arms that wouldn't let go. He watched as she brought her lips to his former self and crushed them beneath Bill's own. It hurt him, godsdammit it hurt too much to bear. He turned away from the entangled lovers, unable to see any more of what could have been. Leoben was still fixed on the spectacle, murmuring noises like "you could have had this" and "look how happy you are." Adama's head swirled in furious confusion as the pain of regret and the aching yearn battered him from all sides. He couldn't take much more of this, of seeing so clearing what he could only wish for before, to know that even a cancer-stricken Laura had to yet to know his feelings. He lunged forward and felt his fingers closing around Leoben's larynx, savoring the choked gasp that escape the cylon's gaping mouth. He crushed further in a blind fury, the deafening roar of rage taunting him. Blackness crept into his vision and consumed him. Silence.

He heard the marines before he saw them, desperately shouting his title in an effort to bring him about. The stark interrogation room transpired into view, and he caught sight of the veins bulging from his hands that were still locked around the cylon's throat. He released the machine in a swift jerk of his arms.

Laura Roslin sat nervously on the Admiral's couch, hardly reading the trivial report that ended up in her hand. Another cylon aboard Galactica? How the frak do these things keep getting in? Perhaps they were already there to begin with? Why had no one spotted them? She rose from the leather's comfort and wandered toward the quarter's fastened hatch. The Admiral should be back by now, and he'd damn well better have the answers to these questions.

Stepping in the harsh lights of the hallways, she could make out Bill storming down the steps like a viper barreling from the tubes, trailed by his marine entourage. Passerby's made way for their unwavering superior. Good, she thought, he was back.

"He sing?" she called out. "Like a tea kettle" was his gruff reply. "Airlocked him afterward." This was positive news, she thought, but something seemed wrong in the way the Admiral bee-lined toward her, planted himself in front of her, oh my gods gathered her in his arms, leaned in and…

Kissed her senseless. That was the last coherent thought to enter her brain. Not the shocked faces of those around them, the fact she forgot to clad herself in shoes, or any cylon aboard any ship could stop her from enjoying this moment. This moment she'd thought about initiating a thousand times, and wanted from that drug-induced night under the starry sky.

She finally pushed him away enough blink her wide green eyes at his placid blue ones. "What the frak," she breathed slowly, "did that thing say to you?" Bill grinned at her astonishment and touched a roughened dark hand to her pale cheek.

"He told me of a lion, a lion fiercely in love with a fox."


End file.
